Teach you a lesson - Korean web series

Teach You a Lesson 

is a Korean web series. Honestly, I would love to start with looking at the cast, but I do not know any of them. What I can say is that I spent ten and a half hours with a lot of these characters in a single day. So let me share my experience of watching this series.

According to the story, the Korean Education Minister creates an organization called ERPB to deal with various problems in schools. These problems range from arrogant students and gang culture to teachers mistreating students and students mistreating teachers. At the beginning, the entire organization consists of only two people. The Education Minister Choi Kang Seok and an inspector named Na Hwa Jin.

Na Hwa Jin is the one who goes into the field and does the actual work. By field, I mean he directly visits schools, investigates what students or teachers have done wrong, and hands out appropriate punishment. If anyone opposes his actions, the minister handles the political side of things.

The first scene where Na Hwa Jin makes his entrance is incredibly satisfying. Just when we as viewers are sitting there thinking What is wrong with this student? Why is he beating up another student like this? Someone should really... Na Hwa Jin arrives and gives him exactly what he deserves. We hesitate because it feels wrong to hit a student. But that hesitation is exactly what gives these troublemakers confidence. If teachers are too afraid to discipline a student, that usually means the student has become too powerful. So who is going to bell the cat? That question is exactly why the Education Rights Protection Bureau, or ERPB, was created.

After the first episode solves that particular case, we start wondering what more the series can possibly show. Before we can even think about it, the next episode tackles student gangs and their activities and delivers justice there as well. Then we wonder again what is left to tell. But throughout these episodes, the series keeps dropping small hints about why ERPB was created in the first place. Those moments quietly build interest in the larger story.

Just when it starts feeling like ERPB itself might be in danger, a harmless looking tech expert named Bang Hun Dae joins the team.

At first the organization feels like a two wheeler because it has only two members. Then it becomes a tricycle with three. By the third episode, a female inspector joins the team and helps deal with students who have turned into social media influencers and use their popularity for all kinds of nonsense. Just like that, the team becomes a four wheeler. From that point onward, the vehicle runs smoothly with all four members.

I even thought they might pair Han Rim with Na Hwa Jin and create a romance track. Instead, that storyline ends up connecting with Deputy Bang Hun Dae.

Every school has its own problems. Teachers suffer because of students. Students suffer because of teachers. One student drives another student to suicide. A student drives a teacher to suicide. The four members of ERPB step in and teach lessons to people who behave without even the slightest sense of humanity. What makes the series so satisfying is that every villain gets taught a lesson in a language they personally understand.

One example is a student who constantly boasts about having six hundred thousand followers on social media. During class, she ignores the lesson completely and keeps talking to her followers through live streams. Even when a teacher politely asks her to pay attention, she gets angry and responds as if the teacher is disturbing something important. Watching that makes us think What on earth is this?

The teacher cannot even properly discipline her. Why? Because a male teacher who tried to do that earlier was falsely accused of sexual misconduct through social media videos and eventually took his own life.

Now this teacher is a woman. It becomes even easier for students to spread her photos online, create a false image of her as a terrible teacher, and destroy her confidence. She enters the classroom every day already scared and emotionally exhausted. In that situation, how can she effectively discipline anyone?

ERPB exists for people like her.

The series does not focus only on students who refuse to listen to teachers. It also targets teachers who deny students the education they deserve because of money and influence. It targets students who profit from spreading drug culture. It targets anyone whose actions harm the educational environment.

That is what Teach You a Lesson is really about. It teaches lessons to the people who need them most.

While watching it, I kept thinking about how wonderful it would be if an organization like this actually existed. Just like people wished for someone like the Indian thaaththaa from Indian to fight corruption, or like Professor Ramana standing against corruption with the help of students, this series makes us think If only there were people like this in real life.

That feeling is probably the biggest achievement of these ten and a half hours.

I was honestly hesitant before starting the series because I thought spending the entire runtime inside schools might become boring. But the series never allows that to happen. Some situations become so cruel that we desperately wait for them to end. Then ERPB steps in, teaches the guilty parties a lesson in their own language, and gives us that sense of satisfaction.

You will need an entire work shift's worth of free time to finish this series.

Give it a watch.

Let's meet again in the next post, friends.

See ya!